


Miscellany

by thepointoftheneedle



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28343622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle
Summary: A collection of short one shots and drabbles, just to keep things tidy.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 54
Kudos: 52





	1. Coffee Shop AU

Betty tied the apron and stood attentively behind her shift manager, Kevin, as he showed her the idiosyncrasies and foibles of the huge Fracino espresso machine. She was pleased to have got the job and wanted to present herself as an uncomplicatedly good hire. The coffee shop was a five minute walk from her apartment and she liked the ambiance. She’d been a regular customer since she began her research degree, stopping in often in the mornings on her way to the campus library. Working behind the counter would give her a break from the solitude and intensity of her thesis and it would force her to interact with people. A lonely girl in a new city needed some human contact. After her initiation into the sacred rites of the machine Kevin gave her a laminated recipe card, took a seat on the other side of the counter and called out orders to her as she practiced. 

“Tall latte, three shots,” presented no problem and she even managed the leaf design in the foam with a reasonable degree of skill. Kevin had clearly given his own order as a first trial because he took the drink from her hand and sipped it as he continued to put her through her paces.

“Medium cap, extra wet, rice,” was next, followed by “Flat white with legs.” She turned out the orders competently although the difference between them was negligible. He tested her listening skills and her ability not to laugh at an order with the "16oz, bone dry, five-shot ristretto, extra-whip, two-raw-sugars cappuccino” and the "Super-tall iced coffee, 12 pumps vanilla, 12 pumps hazelnut, 12 pumps caramel, 5 pumps skinny mocha, a splash of soy, ice, double-blended.” When he asked what she would suggest to up-sell that customer she suggested a shot of insulin, which made the only client in the place bark out a laugh. Kevin raised an eyebrow and she pointed at the millionaire shortcake instead and he nodded his approval.

“Ok, now for the real caffeine heads you need to get the serious drinks perfect every time.” He had her draw a straight doppio, a ristretto, a lungo, a red eye and a black eye and lined them up along the counter. As she served the last Kevin looked over his shoulder at the lone customer. “You want any of these before they go down the drain, Hemingway?”

The guy looked up from his laptop and nodded, shuffling over and gathering up all of them, except the syrup concoction, in two journeys and returning them to his booth like a squirrel gathering acorns to tide him through winter. “Thanks Kevin,” he muttered as he secured the last of his spoils.

“Don’t thank me, Betty here made them. I only worry that all that caffeine will stop your heart. An ambulance outside will do nothing for our reputation,” Kevin replied.

“I have a high tolerance. For caffeine if nothing else. And thanks Betty. Nice to meet you.” He looked at her as he spoke and she was surprised by his eyes. They were a striking blue green, not the brown she would have expected with his dark hair. His eyelashes were unexpectedly long too, sweeping almost up to his brow line. Now that he wasn’t hunched over the keyboard she saw that he was handsome in a poetic, sensitive, romantic kind of way. He looked out of his time somehow, more suited to doublet and hose and rhyming couplets or drinking absinthe with Rimbaud. But here he was, drinking free, rapidly cooling coffee in Greenwich Village. 

“He’s a fixture and fitting, aren’t you Jones?”

“You’re my Café de Flore Kevin. I’ll dedicate the book to your hospitality,” he smiled. Betty liked the smile.

Over the next few weeks she exchanged a nod of greeting with Jones almost every day. He was generally in his booth when she arrived at four and left around seven, gathering up his laptop and a tall Americano to go, as if he hadn’t already risked his sanity with the amount of caffeine he’d consumed. “That’s quite a coffee habit,” she observed as he ordered another cup of drip coffee one afternoon. 

“I’m a machine for turning coffee into prose, got to fuel the engine,” he quipped with a smirk. It was clearly a line he used a lot.

The next day as he collected his to-go brew she asked him if it stopped him from sleeping and he explained that he worked nights. “This’ll keep me going til four tomorrow morning. It’s good to be able to hate your job with the required degree of enthusiasm.” He was funny in a dry, self deprecating way that she enjoyed.

She started to try to sneak him extras with his coffee, offering cookies and chocolate stirrers. He turned them down. “I just like coffee with my coffee.”

“If you drink anymore you’ll start twitching.”

“No, I know my limit. I stop when I start being able to see noises and hear smells.”

She began to tease him about the consistency of his ordering. “Hey Jones, give me a challenge. Order something milky with complicated syrups and whipped cream.”

“Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love,” he replied. “That’s not mine by the way. It’s a proverb from Turkey or somewhere.”

“But you don’t use sugar.”

“No, I replace the love with bitterness,” he laughed, returning to his seat with his usual drip coffee.

The next day she suggested a cortado. “Come on Jones, let a little light into that darkness.” He grinned and accepted a macchiato. “Today a dab of foamed milk, tomorrow a vanilla latte with whipped cream. You’ll find you can live without pure intravenous caffeine.”

“I can live without it but all the folks who remain unharmed because I am well caffeinated really don’t want me to skimp. Anyway if you wean me off caffeine you’ll slash the profit margin of this place,” he smiled. “Not that I’m here solely for the coffee.”

She began to look forward to the jokes, to his familiar presence, to looking over at his long fingers dancing over the keys as he typed. There were moments when she found herself imagining them moving over her skin that way, flushing and tightening her ponytail in confusion as if he’d be able to read her thoughts.

One afternoon she found him slumped in the booth, his head against the seat back, snoring softly. She let him sleep until ten to seven before holding his Americano under his nose. He blinked his magnificent eyes as he awakened and then shook his head to disperse the sleep. She’d like to see that a lot more often, preferably from the adjacent pillow. “Thanks Betty, not enough coffee today and Jones without coffee is like… something without something…sorry, too sleepy for bon mots.”

Betty learned that he was doing his MFA at the New School, supporting himself by working nights as a porter at Bellevue. “Takes too long to travel all the way back to Yonkers between class and work so I hide out here and write. Besides I live with a singer/songwriter so it gets sort of noisy at home.” Betty hid her disappointment. Of course he had a girlfriend. 

“A musician. Would I know her work?” she asked, twisting the knife masochistically.

“Him. No, I doubt it.” He paused and then looked at her a little shyly through his untidy, dark curls. “He’s playing downtown at the weekend and I’ve got a night off. You should come.” Betty reproached herself for her heteronormativity and smiled weakly. She really didn’t want to see Jones and his boyfriend together.

“Oh I’ve got … stuff this weekend. But thanks though. I’m sure he’ll be great.” 

Jones flushed and looked at his feet. “I’m sorry if that was inappropriate. You don’t come to work to get hit on. Sorry,”

“Oh, no I didn’t think you were asking me on a date. To your boyfriend’s gig? That’d be weird. Oh unless…Oh, I mean, weird was rude. It’s totally your business but I’m not…like, I’m pretty strait-laced I guess. But you do you…or whoever. Sorry.” Jones was actually laughing now.

“Archie’s my roommate not my boyfriend. I wasn’t inviting you to a threesome. I was asking you on a date. If you’re busy or you’d rather I got lost just say so.”

The gig was the most fun she’d had since she moved to the city. When he leaned in for a kiss her heart thumped like she’d just drunk ten shots of espresso. After the encore she put her hand on Jughead’s arm and looked into his eyes. “Would you like to come to my place… for coffee?”


	2. "My Hero,"  A Christmas Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty and Jug prepare for Christmas

Jughead struggled into the house, burdened like a nativity play donkey, bags and boxes jostling against each other. He dropped his cargo on the doormat and leaned back against the door, closing his eyes and exhaling a long, exhausted breath. “Did you get everything?” a voice called from the living room.

  
“Yes, my Christmas angel, I got everything on all of the lists. I have conquered all of the tasks you set before me. I have proven myself a worthy suitor.”

  
“You got the tree lights?”

  
“Call me Prometheus for I have brought you the very fire of Olympus.”

  
“I’ll call you a goof, you goof. You got the turkey for Christmas Day?”

  
“I am Hercules, I have brought you the Stymphalian Birds, heedless of the great peril to my life.” He picked up some of the bags from the pile by the door and stepped into the warm, welcoming room where she rested on the couch.

  
“You’ve been googling this on the subway haven’t you? Come on then, if you’ve worked out a whole bit I’ll hear it.”

  
“I am Theseus, the labyrinth of Bloomingdales’s did not defeat me. I demanded and received tribute from the fearsome Minotaur of the perfume counter.” He held up the relevant box for inspection.

  
“Well done Jug. Mom’s Chanel No5. And gift wrapped too.”

  
“I am Jason and I have secured the fleece that will appease your father’s wrath that I have ravished and ruined his fair daughter.”

  
“Oh great, is it the Lacoste Argyll one?” He held up a green golfing sweater and she nodded her approval.

  
“I have outdone Tantalus for I have secured ambrosia for our feasting, potato ambrosia and cranberry ambrosia and all the other kinds of ambrosia on the spreadsheet.”

  
“You want me to say that you’re my hero don’t you?”

  
“It is not my place to tell my lady how she should appraise these epic accomplishments, all achieved while she reclined at leisure upon her silken divan.”

  
She did, truth be told, feel guilty about how much he was having to do. She hadn’t realised how exhausted she’d be eight and a half months into what seemed like a never ending pregnancy. When he’d found her, crying on the stairs three nights ago, simply too tired to put herself to bed, he’d laid down the law in a way she’d never known him to before. “That’s it,” he’d said. “You are going to lie on the couch until Christmas Day. Your parents can come here instead of us going to them. You’re in no state to travel.”

  
“But Juggie, the cooking, the shopping. We haven’t even got a tree.”

  
“Leave it all to me. I am in charge. I am now the patriarch and I will be obeyed... is that okay?”

  
She had nodded and started making lists while he went into the kitchen to call her mother and derail all of Alice Cooper’s carefully laid holiday plans. She was stunned when he came back into the room, a little pale and shaken, and told her everything was arranged.

  
On Christmas morning she called out instructions from the living room as he prepared their Christmas meal. Even her mom had to admit it smelled pretty good when she and the proud grandpa-to-be arrived from Riverdale. The Christmas tree sparkled, gifts wrapped neatly below it, festive music playing softly in the background. It was the kind of Christmas that no one would want to miss, which probably accounts for why, as Betty began to move from the couch to the table, she stopped, looked at her hero with wide eyes and demanded in a low, commanding voice, “Get the hospital bag and an Uber, Jug. Right now.”

  
That night he held his son in his arms, looking at Betty, his eyes wet with tears. “Hey Gabe,” he whispered, “your momma’s a hero.”


	3. New Year's Eve

It was obvious that the party was going off the rails as soon as Archie started lining up shots along the whole length of the marble counter top. He called Reggie out and Reggie never backed down from a challenge to his machismo so they both worked their way along the little bullets of stupid until, breathless and belly laughing, they slid to the floor, their eyes swivelling in their dumb skulls like cartoon coyotes that had just been smashed over the head with an Acme anvil. It was nine fifteen. Betty had wondered if Veronica would be mad about it but she seemed in the mood for some chaos as she set up two more lines of glasses opposite each other on the counter and challenged Cheryl who had never met an unnecessary drama she didn’t like. 

Betty had drunk a very pleasant glass of good champagne and had been contemplating having a couple more before midnight. She’d never been a big drinker so for her that was cutting loose. It had been, to put it crudely, a shit-show of a year and she was glad to see the back of it. At the last New Year’s party she had been showing off a dazzling engagement ring, about to start the job that she had been expensively and laboriously trained for and she and her intended had signed the lease on a cute and well appointed apartment in Sunset Park which everyone said was the up and coming neighbourhood. The world had been unfolding for her like a flower. Then the frost had come and scorched the petals with its chill. This year she was single, her job sometimes felt like it was consuming her and that cute apartment burned through every cent of her pay check now she had to make the rent alone. It was possible that she was the saddest girl in a cocktail dress on the whole island of Manhattan, she was certainly the soberest person at the party.

An hour later the shots were completely out of hand and Betty had only just prevented Ethel from throwing up into the piano. Moose made some half hearted effort to restore order, offering glasses of water, trying to start a game of charades, but Kevin was in too mischievous a mood for his efforts to bear any fruit and instead they were embarking on Drunk Jenga, the rules of which seemed to be that you took a shot whenever you removed a block and then another when you placed it on top of the stack. She imagined you took a shot if the tower fell but she didn’t stick around to find out. She sidled over to where the Pol Roger was stacked, neglected, in its very own champagne refrigerator and helped herself while everyone else was supporting the economy of Mexico by the prodigious consumption of Patron Silver.

She took her recharged glass to the window and looked out at the snowy expanse of Central Park far below. It looked like the idealised interior of a snow globe, the air glassy and still and a huge yellow moon surveying its domain. Betty remembered walking through the park with Trev last Christmas, bundled in a thick coat and scarf. They’d held hands inside one of his mittens. They’d made snow angels. They’d skated at the Wollman Rink and drunk hot chocolate afterwards. Her life had been a cover image from a romance novel. This year she had spent Christmas being patronised by Polly’s constant offers of introductions to a succession of Jason’s frat brothers and golfing buddies. Eventually she’d pointed out that if she’d wanted some obstructionist, bigoted blowhard she could have found one herself, without Polly’s oh so sympathetic intervention. Polly cried and Betty apologised but she still wasn’t going to go on a date with a junior vice president of acquisitions even if he did have a weekend place in Connecticut. She wouldn’t tolerate being paraded in front of prospective suitors like a prize dairy cow at the county show, not by Veronica and certainly not by her sister.

As she reminisced she became aware of Archie and Veronica deep in conversation in the corner of the room. “We have a teeny emergenshy,” Veronica said, her hand on Archie’s forearm. Veronica was never less than perfectly composed but that slur at the end of her word and the ramped up sincerity gave her away to her best friend. She was sozzled. “Only two bottles of Patron left and then the cupboard is bare. I may have over-ordered on the fizz and neglected the tequila.”

Archie nodded, taking the situation as seriously as his wife. Then some kind of light dawned on his handsome face. “We’ll get the magic doorman to get us some. He’ll be on duty now. I’ll go slip him a fifty and he’ll take care of it.” He turned to reach for his wallet and promptly fell on his face. It was ten to eleven and all was decidedly not well.

Betty went over to help Archie off the rug. He grinned even though his nose was bloody. “Ronnie, Betty’s all sober and sensible. She can go talk to the wizard. Here Betty, here’s fifty for a tip and Ronnie’ll give you her credit card for the booze. Okay? Shit I’m bleeding… still it’s not a party til something gets broke.”

V was looking at her imploringly now. Somewhere there was the sound of glass smashing and Monroe’s attempt to do chin ups on the kitchen doorframe seemed to be bringing plaster down on the floor. Betty would rather be almost anywhere than right here so she nodded at her friend. "What do you need V?”

Veronica explained that the building’s night doorman was a fixer. When Tom in 204 had forgotten his wife’s birthday, Jones had got him a gluten free chiffon cake iced with her name at two thirty on a Thursday morning along with a bouquet of out of season narcissuses....narcissi? When the little boy in 116 had told his mama at midnight that he needed a George Washington costume for school the next day the night doorman had sourced it, complete with powdered wig, before the little tyke had finished his Cheerios. When V had realised an hour before leaving for her 5.15 a.m. flight to Miami that she had completely forgotten her niece’s confirmation gift, he had sourced a personalised Catholic Bible bound in white leather which he handed to her as she got into her cab. “He’s a miracle worker B. Just tell him we need a case…no two cases of Patron Silver before midnight. Give him the fifty but tell him I’ll make it a hundred if he can fix it by eleven thirty. OK?”

“Sure. On my way.” 

She travelled down in the elevator imagining the doorman. He’d be some old guy in a uniform with gold braid on the chest. He probably knew all the residents and their dogs by name and had one of those old timey extended families so that he could reach out to Cousin Ike for last minute birthday cakes or get his nephew’s wife to sew a costume at no notice. She needed a fixer herself since her whole life seemed broken. She wondered what he could do for a lonely woman who was trying to work out if getting a cat was too clear an admission that she had given up.

As she stepped out into the lobby she was slightly taken aback by the mismatch between her expectations and reality. He was behind the reception desk, dark head bowed over a laptop, no braid in evidence, no grey whiskers or paunch, just this dark, poetic looking guy in a black sweater. She approached the desk and he looked up at her, fingers still flying over the keys without him needing to glance down. He seemed to reach a natural pause, closed the lid of the laptop and smiled politely. “Yes ma’am, how can I help?” His eyes were blue. They seemed to look through her, probably thinking she was another rich girl bringing him problems. He must get that a lot.

“Yeah, hi, I’m a guest of Mr and Mrs Lodge Andrews up in the penthouse. They’re having a little New Year's Eve party and they’re running low on liquor. They wondered if you could source them a couple of cases of…”

“Patron Silver? Yes ma’am, of course. Who should I charge it to?” She had no idea how he could have known what she was going to ask for. It made her want to say that they wanted Stolichnaya or absinthe or something, just to surprise him but she’d been sent for Patron and Patron she would get.

“Oh, yes, I have a credit card.” She handed it over, “and Mr Andrews said to give you this for the trouble.” She passed him the fifty, embarrassed.

“No incentive to get it here before the coaches turn into pumpkins?” he asked, eyebrow raised. She thought he was making fun of her but she couldn’t be sure. 

“Oh yes, that’s right. Veronica said another $50 if it’s here by eleven thirty.”

“Okay ma’am. I’ll buzz up when it’s here. If that’s all...”

“Oh please don’t call me ma’am. I’m Betty.”

“I’m Jones... Jughead. Nickname. Dull story.” He raised an eyebrow, clearly wondering why she was still standing in front of his desk.

“Look, it’s a little crazy up there. Would it be okay if I just stay down here for a minute? Just say if it’s inconvenient. I don’t want to disturb you if you’re busy.” She didn’t think she could bear to be the responsible adult at Veronica’s party for a moment longer. Here it was quiet and no one needed her to hold back their hair while they were getting sick.

“Busy getting hold of twelve bottles of decent tequila on New Year's Eve but that’s all. I just need to make a call. Excuse me.” He stood and walked away from the desk, his back turned to her. It was a good back. He was wearing the black sweater over grey slacks with a key chain hanging from one of his belt loops. He had broad shoulders but his neck was fine, not thick and meaty like the guys who needed to lift weights to manufacture some self esteem. He was slim at the waist and the hips, long legs, tall. The hair was the USP though, dark waves of it tumbling freely as he dragged long fingers through it, waiting for someone to pick up his call. Finally he yelled “Hey Toni. Yeah, two cases of Patron Silver asap. Yeah, I’d noticed that but mark it up. Can Sweetpea drop it over? Yeah right now. Hey, ask him to get me a burger on the way too.” He turned to Betty with a questioning look and she shrugged and nodded, “Two, make it two. Ok, thanks Toni. Yeah you too. See you Sunday.”

He ended the call and made his way back to the desk. “My pal Toni runs a bar,” he explained with a grin. 

“Veronica says you’re magic, a wizard,” she told him.

“Nothing occult about it. I’m just observant, that’s all.”

“Seems magical to produce a George Washington costume overnight,” she countered. 

“Oh well, that was a lucky break. My sister’s a textile artist. A struggling one. I gave her the brief and she knocked up the costume in a few hours. Now all the upper east side mommies have her business card and she can afford to buy materials and pay her rent. She had to pull an all nighter but it paid off pretty big in the end.”

“Birthday cake? Out of season flowers?” 

“The husband’s kind of a dick. He forgot last year too. They had a fight about it in this very lobby so I wrote down the date and got ready to save his bacon. If he’d remembered the date I’d have had cake for my breakfast and sent my sister a bunch of flowers. As it was I made a couple hundred bucks.”

Betty was laughing now at the smug look on his face. “So you could have reminded him beforehand?”

“Could have, but maybe the expense’ll help him remember next time. Anyway if the doorman knows more about your wife than you do it might be time to review your priorities.”

“Ok but what about the Bible? That seems pretty miraculous.”

“Actually it’s kind of the opposite. The kid’s confirmation name is Maria. Hardly original. My buddy Joaquin’s little sister was confirmed a few months ago. Her confirmation name’s Maria. She hadn’t made a whole lot of use of the Bible. Your pal paid me three hundred, Joaquin’s kid sister got two hundred in her college fund.”

“Seems like the side hustles are more remunerative than the pay check,” Betty observed.

“It’s all a side hustle. I’m a writer. This job’s kept me supplied with characters and plot lines and given me eight hours of mostly uninterrupted writing time.”

Betty flushed pink and jumped up from the corner of the desk where she had been leaning. “Oh I’m so sorry. Here I am wasting your time. I’ll be on my way.”

“No, wait,” he reached out and put his hand on her arm. It tingled. “I didn’t mean it like that. This is research. Maybe I’ll put you in my next book. The sad girl in a cocktail dress who’d rather be in the lobby than with her friends at a party being kissed for New Year.”

“There’s no-one to kiss up there,” she confessed with a sad smile and then, without having any idea why, she said “I broke up with my fiancé last February.”

“Aha,” he said. “There’s the plot. Tell me.”

“He’s great. A really good guy. Kind, loyal, handsome. Everything I should have wanted. Any girl would be lucky to have him. I think I broke his heart.”

“Why?”

“We started to plan the wedding and I wanted to run away. I couldn’t bear to think about it. Then one day I found myself imagining what I’d do if something bad happened that prevented it, like if he got sick or if I was in a car accident or something. It was pretty clear that I couldn’t go through with it if I preferred the idea of one of us being in a coma to the idea of my wedding day.”

“Cold feet?”

“Oh freezing but it wasn’t just nerves. When I imagined being married to him I couldn’t see myself, I was just a blank. It was… I don’t know how to say it…like I was finished. I’d never be anything more than I was, never change or grow or struggle. It was all too easy. No grit in the oyster. I know it’s crazy.”

“You didn’t say it was you not him did you? You didn’t do that to him?” He was smiling at her, sympathising not mocking.

She blushed. “I did. All the clichés. How could I explain? I don’t even understand it myself.”

“I understand it. You want to find out who you can be and he couldn’t give you that. He was happy with who you were, didn’t want you to change. He was probably scared of losing you. Anyone would be.” He looked at her with an intensity that made her nervous so she tried to change the subject. 

“A writer then? What do you write?”

“Mostly mystery stories. Magazines and online so far but I’ve just got a publisher for the novel. I’m going to quit this next year. What do you do?”

“I’m a psychologist. I work with kids who are in trouble. Try to get them back on track. I love it but it’s hard sometimes. I hear things that it’s tough to leave at the office.”

“You need to take care of you first. You can’t save someone if you aren’t safe yourself. ”

“Writer or life coach?” she smiled.

He chuckled. “Sorry. I’m not good at small talk. I get too intense too fast and freak people out. Oh hey, cometh the man, cometh the tequila.” 

A tall guy in a leather jacket was pulling boxes out of the back of a truck that he’d illegally bumped up the curb outside.. He looked a little scary. Once he was in the lobby she saw that he had a snake tattooed on his neck. He fist bumped Jughead and then pulled him into a side hug. “Hey man. Happy new year and all that. Hey,” he said, noticing Betty for the first time. 

“Hey. Thanks so much for bringing it over. There’s a whole apartment full of drunk idiots upstairs just waiting to make themselves sick on it. Oh!” He turned back to Betty, aghast at what he’d said. “Sorry Betty.”

“You’ll not get an argument from me. That’s why I’m down here talking to you.”

Neck tattoo laughed and held out his hand “Sweetpea. Pleasure doing business with you.” He turned back to Jughead, “So I have to get back, I’m supposed to be on the door at the Wyrm. See you Sunday?”

“Burgers?” Jug reminded him and his friend nodded, trotting back to the truck to grab a take out bag and toss it back to Jughead who snatched it from the air like a dolphin snatching a fish at Seaworld.

Betty buzzed up to the penthouse to get one of the assembled jocks to come and collect two cases of tequila and bring down a bottle of Pol Roger and the promised fifty dollars. It was eleven twenty four. Ten minutes later she was sitting on the reception desk eating a burger, washing it down with $200 champagne. “This is the best New Year's Eve I’ve ever had,” she grinned, a little disinhibited by the bubbles. 

“Weren’t you engaged last year?”

“This is much better. I was pretending last year. Now I’m just being me.”

“I always find that works better. The not pretending bit. Especially not with someone you can love.”

She certainly wasn’t pretending at eleven fifty nine when she reached out to him and he took her in his arms and kissed her softly as cheers and yells rang out from the parties all over the city and fireworks exploded high above the park, casting confetti of coloured lights across the marble lobby. 

As the kiss ended she looked up into his blue eyes, wondering if it was the champagne that was making her blurry and relaxed or if it was him. She thought she’d have to keep on kissing him to know for sure. He really was a fixer though. Her heart felt lighter, hopeful.

He grinned. “Spectacular as that was, this is probably the most surveilled lobby in the city. Can we schedule the repeat for when I’m not actually on the clock?” He gestured at the security cameras covering every inch of the space and she blushed to think that somewhere there was taped evidence of her trying to seduce the sexy doorman.

“Can I stay here and talk to you some more if I promise not to touch?”

“I wish you would. I get off at six and I know a great diner for breakfast. We can tell people our first date was breakfast. They’ll be scandalised.” She couldn’t hold back at the mention of the first date, of them telling people about it, so she kissed him on the cheek before retreating back to the edge of the desk with her hands up.

They talked about her work, his writing, they compiled an ultimate New Year's Eve playlist and top tens of movies and books. She found herself distracted by the fullness of his lips, the expressiveness of his face, the heaviness of the locks of hair that fell forward over his eyes only to be pushed back impatiently. They agreed on almost nothing and that was exactly how she liked it. When she crept up to the penthouse at five thirty to collect her coat and change her party shoes for snow boots, she was met with a scene of devastation. Prostrate bodies sprawled on every flat surface. The two cases of tequila sat unopened in the kitchen, clearly surplus to requirements by the time they had been manifested. She picked her way through the carnage and found the coat closet where Archie had put her things when she’d arrived the night before. Opening the door she noticed the cases of liquor stacked inside, three unopened boxes of Patron among them. She realised that Jug wasn’t the only fixer in the building. She made sure to lean over her sleeping friend to place a kiss on her forehead before she let herself out, locking the door behind her.


	4. Drabbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are drabbles (all 100 words on the nose, lord what a useless skill) that I have written for challenges and as little gifts and when I was feeling inspired but had a WIP on the go and no time to start something new. Posted here so as not to lose them in case I decide to work any of them up in a longer form. Dazed By Moonlight started here.

SPY STORY  
Betty styled her hair like Farrah Fawcett, applied electric blue eyeshadow and a fuschia lip. She stepped into the turquoise jumpsuit and pulled up the zipper. It was loose on her legs but the top was tight. She pulled the zipper back down a little. A useful distraction.  
She stepped out of the apartment block to find the Trabant outside as arranged. It even started first time. Twenty minutes to Checkpoint Charlie. As she pulled away she spoke to the passenger hidden inside the rear seat. “Agent Jones. Didn’t I tell you I was going to be good to you?”

SUPERNATURAL/HYPNOTIZE  
“Jug, if you keep doing this their brains will scramble.”   
“Don’t worry Betts. They’ll be fine. I couldn’t face that ladder this morning. And what is the point of being a warlock if not this? Mr Cooper, Mrs Cooper, I’m going to count backwards from three and when I finish you’ll open your eyes and forget that you found a Southside Serpent in your sexy daughter’s bed this fine morning. Three, two, one, Hi there Mrs Cooper. I called to walk Betty to school. What a lovely day.”  
Betty giggled as Mr Cooper began to softly crow like a chicken.

ROMANTIC COMEDY/ FLORAL ARRANGEMENT  
“I have other clients Ms Cooper. I can’t just give you the whole stock of roses.” Jones looked defiant but he was struggling to keep his eyes on hers. He kept glancing down at her neckline. He was so beautiful.  
“How about an incentive?”  
“What did you have in mind?”   
She toyed with the top button of her blouse. “A button for each four dozen?”   
He gulped. “Two dozen.”  
“Done.”  
Betty pulled up at the shop two hours later, flushed, her shirt buttoned wrongly. Kev was waiting. “What the hell Betts! We already have more roses than we can sell.”

SUITOR/ HISTORICAL FICTION  
On the porch Betty watched young men passing by, clutching posies, going courting. No beau would call on her. Polly’s “frailty” was well known. No man of respectable family would be associated with such weakness. She would be an old maid.   
As the sun sank a long shadow fell across her. Looking up into a pair of kind blue eyes she recognised her old playmate. Everyone said that he had come back from the war “touched” but he seemed the same to her. “Jughead!”   
He held a fistful of marigolds. “If we’re both alone, Betty, shouldn’t we be alone together?”

FANTASY/ DON'T CALL ME THAT  
The damn cat was always lurking where she least expected it, black fur rendering it invisible. Now it had started jumping onto her chest in the morning, staring at her until, blinking awake, she found herself gazing into its strange blue eyes. No one knew where it had come from.  
She was FaceTiming with Kev and absentmindedly stroking its fur as it purred when he remarked that she had a new cat. “Oh that? That’s not ours.” As she ended the call it looked at her and in a deep male voice said “Don’t call me “that.” My name’s Jughead”

WESTERN/ LUCKY SHOT  
Since the fever took mama she’d worked the ranch alone but it was dangerous for a woman with no kin. She needed help but how would she keep a hired man in line? She fetched her papa’s old pistol and practiced for days until she could hit tin cans at twenty paces.  
She found she liked shooting better than ploughing so when the dark haired, blue eyed gun-fighter came riding up to the farm she welcomed him instead of putting a bullet through him. When he saddled up she smiled, buckled her gun belt and rode away with him.

WORKPLACE DRAMA/ PRANK  
“She’s stuck up bro. She needs to relax.” Reggie was mad because she’d said it was unprofessional to send the students onto the snowy field to “warm up” while he drank coffee indoors. “Hey, I know! We send her a sexy gift and sign it from the weird new sub. That’ll screw with them.”  
He spent his break ordering lingerie and raspberry body paint and writing a message for the gift card saying “Your hot, from Forsythe.”  
The next morning the sub handed him the card, corrected in red. At the bottom he’d written  
“Thanks Reg.  
Betty and Jughead Jones.”

BIRTHDAY  
Birthdays. Ridiculous. Alighting randomly on a day in the year to pretend to care about someone you usually ignored, bullied or otherwise maligned was sheer hypocrisy. He would not participate. The date was a secret known only to Archie and his dad. He hoped he’d forget. Anything rather than a reused birthday candle in a squashed cupcake amidst the microwave pinging and the bottles clinking.  
But this year was different; a gift pushed quietly across the desk, Pop saying that the pie would go to waste if he didn’t eat it, a kiss at the Bijou, a Betty Cooper birthday!

SWEET  
Ellie’s first day at the bakery was ending when a guy came in with a little girl.  
“Hi shop lady, Jo got an A in Math so she chooses dessert,” he said.   
Her boss Betty smiled, “Congrats, what would you like?”  
“Strawberry shortcake please,”   
“Make it two,” said her dad.  
“On the house. Nothing for mommy?” said Betty pushing the box across the counter.  
“Oh poppa will make sure there’s something sweet for mommy, sweet and hot...and spicy.”   
Ellie glanced at her blushing boss as the customers left. “Wow, that was...”  
“Yeah, he’s weird. He’s a weirdo,” she giggled.

ASSASSIN  
“So you got rid of the body?” Her work persona was endlessly sexy.  
“Duh. Not an amateur Betts,” he rolled his eyes.  
“Weapon?”   
“Disassembled and dispersed.”  
“A witness though Jug,” He shouldn’t enjoy the reprimand as much as he did. “Sloppy.”  
“Your research was off. I was told he’d be alone when the consigliere had gone.”  
“Well I assumed you’d verify.”  
“When you assume…,” he grinned.  
“Ass. So what now?”  
“Well, maybe…” She raised an eyebrow. “Look, he’s cute. Please Betts?” holding the pup near his face, two sets of pleading eyes.  
She sighed but her mouth twitched. Mission accomplished.

MEDIEVAL 1  
“Boy, you’ll be thrashed if you’re dreaming again!” the blacksmith raged, face purple from heat and the effort of lifting the ploughshare. The boy appeared in the doorway, tossing his head to whisk dark curls from his eyes.  
“Looks heavy,” he observed, eyes widening as the smith lunged towards him, dropping the share. The boy whirled around, running across the cobbled square, long legs a blur, the smith pursuing, brandishing his hammer.  
A girl with hair like barley stretched linens on a field. He looked pleadingly, she beckoned. The smith ran past the pile of sheets and the laughing girl.

MEDIEVAL 2  
The novice stared disconsolately into the carp pool. Under her wimple she felt the shaggy crop where her golden hair was hacked away by the prioress. Her tears fell into the glassy water.  
“Is anything more melancholy than a weeping nun?” a low voice muttered from the courtyard wall. She looked up to see a peddler there. “Why do you cry, sister?”  
“I was an oblate here but now my father has sent word that I must remain a nun. He has no money for my dowry.”  
“Not every husband requires a dowry,” smiled the traveller, his blue eyes sparkling.

META  
“Jones. Here, now. I need a rewrite.” The director was an ass but Jug stubbed out his cigarette and slouched back onto the sound stage.  
“Yep?”   
“I’m not feeling her trauma here, man. Can we make it more credible?” The actress rolled her beautiful green eyes at him and he suppressed the smirk twitching the corners of his mouth.  
“She’s tied to the table saw, bleeding, he killed her kitten. I think the agony’s clear,” Jug said.  
“Yeah, okay, there’s trauma but I think it’d be more believable if it was sexy. Hey, I got it, lick your lips honey.”


End file.
